Keir Starmer: Former human rights lawyer and next UK premier?

Sir Keir certainly lost no time basking in the humiliation the Conservatives suffered in the local election vote, poking fun of the fact that they had lost so many seats, many of them to Labour.

"The Prime Minister said he was going to lose 1,000 seats and then he managed to," he joked. "After 13 years, a Tory promise they actually haven't broken."

It remains to be seen whether, given the number of seats Labour need to win to claim outright victory, it will be possible for the party to claim outright victory in the next general election, a feat it has not managed to achieve since Blair was prime minister.

One possibility actively being discussed in Westminster circles is that Labour will be obliged to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, a minority party that previously formed a coalition with the Conservatives in 2010, a move that resulted in David Cameron becoming prime minister.

For the moment, though, Sir Keir and his inner circle believe that Labour is on course to win a parliamentary majority outright. Speaking shortly after the results had been declared, Sir Keir commented: "Make no mistake, we are on course for a Labour majority at the next general election".

One shadow cabinet minister was also quoted as saying: "What we have learnt is that the Tories no longer have any path to a majority. At all. The Conservative Party are not going to form a government."

Given the likelihood that Sir Keir could soon find himself serving as Britain's next prime minister, there is enormous interest in exactly what a Labour Party in power look like.

An indication of the party's likely direction of travel if it gains power was revealed in an early blueprint spelling out the policies that could form Labour's next election manifesto, which has been leaked to the British media.

The plans, drawn up by party policy chiefs, include commitments to raising taxes on private schools and taking the railways into public ownership.

The dossier, published by the LabourList website, offers the clearest idea yet of what Sir Keir might do once in Downing Street. Significant commitments spelt out in the National Policy Forum documents include the repeal of anti-trade union legislation and the abolition of non-dom tax status.

It also describes in detail how Labour will decarbonise Britain's economy – with a state investment fund backing new "gigafactories" to make batteries for electric cars. It states there will be "no return to freedom of movement" with the EU – and commits to a reformed "points-based immigration system" instead.

Most of the plans in the document, however, have been previously announced by the party since Sir Keir became leader and represent a collation of existing policies.

Sir Keir himself has spoken about his five missions, covering the economy, the NHS, crime, the climate crisis and education.

Katy Balls, the political editor of Tory magazine The Spectator, recently wrote a forensic account of Labour's new-style recruitment of MPs.

"If Keir Starmer wins with a small majority, then much will depend on the coalition he would have to build with his party, which is why he has been so keen to nurture a new model army of backbenchers. His team have made it his business to know the politics of local Labour branches. Tony Blair once said this was his secret to success."

Balls also argues many Labour hopefuls believe this new selection process, where candidates are hyper-scrutinized for potentially embarrassing views, has gone beyond looking for obvious racism or anti-Semitism and that it is, in fact, a "new Starmerite screening process". One disaffected person says: "They are picking people in their own image."

It's a measure of Keir Starmer's determination to control his party that he has no concern that he may be robbing his party of character. He cannot countenance the Labour Party veering off course to the hard left again as it did with Jeremy Corbyn. 

He also sparked a storm recently suggesting EU nationals who have spent decades living in the UK should be given the right to vote in a general election. Cabinet minister Michael Gove accused Sir Keir of planning to rig the election and that this would "downgrade the ultimate privilege of British citizenship".

Mr Gove said it had been the "settled constitutional position for many decades" that the right to vote in a general election was limited to British, Irish and qualifying Commonwealth citizens".

A human rights lawyer described as 'ruthless'

What of Starmer the man? The Labour leader was elected as an MP only in 2015, after a successful career as a human rights barrister and as the director of public prosecutions. By 2020 he was party leader.

A new biography, The Starmer Project by Oliver Eagleton, describes Sir Keir as ruthless. It points out that he undermined Jeremy Corbyn as part of a long-term plan to install himself as Labour leader.

He campaigned for that job on a platform of carrying on with Mr Corbyn's policies. Then, once in power, he organised a ruthless purge of the left-wingers who had taken control of the party machinery.

Ben Nunn, a former aide to the Labour leader, says Sir Keir's talk of "national missions", "long-term plans" and "a decade of national renewal" during a recent speech signal more than his thirst for power or a plan for government.

"It signals his determination to be more than a one-term prime minister. He is not complacent (now the dirtiest word in his office). Instead, he knows from history that the most transformative governments – whether those of Thatcher or Blair – were in it for the long haul".

He adds: "If Starmer is to achieve his 10-year programme for government then it must be hard-wired in a 10-year strategy for winning. That starts with defining his purpose for government. Blair had modernisation, Cameron had the deficit, Johnson had Brexit."

Sir Keir himself says: "I've been talking to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown for some time now. I'm conscious that we've been out of power for 13 years. That means I don't have people around the shadow cabinet table who've got huge experience in government. So, I'm determined that we need to be ready to hit the ground running."

Stories have recently appeared in the British press suggesting British civil servants are so confident that Labour will be in power next year that they are already advising Labour's shadow cabinet on how best to prepare for government.

A Shadow Cabinet source confirmed officials have been making informal contact with the party, which constitutes a breach of the UK's civil service guidelines.

The Labour source said: "Some civil servants are already reaching out to us with information. I have been stopped in the street by officials saying, 'I know who you are and there are things you need to know'." Civil servants are meant to hold direct talks with opposition politicians only in the immediate run-up to a general election.

Sir Keir has already ordered his top team to draw up plans for Labour's first 100 days in office if it wins power.

As a father and a husband, he worries about the impact that getting into Downing Street would have on his wife, Victoria, and their two children.

"I do think about this a lot…We've taken the decision collectively, my wife and I, that we will protect them as far as we can. We don't use them in photo shoots, and I never say their names in public. But it is difficult."

Difficult perhaps, but clearly carefully considered. The Labour leader is likely to have the rest of this year to build his own case with voters who have fallen out of love with the Conservatives but remain unsure as to whether Sir Keir is the right man to enter Downing Street.

Becoming prime minister is clearly no easy task, but Sir Keir is now much closer to fulfilling his ambition than when he became Labour leader in 2020, when few Labour activists believed he could ever become prime minister.

Then the party was reeling from its worst performance at the ballot box since 1935, riven by internal divisions, under fire over its record of tackling antisemitism and facing a seemingly unassailable Boris Johnson with an 80-seat majority.

Now, Ipsos, which publishes the latest results of UK opinion polls and voting intentions, has said that two out of three Britons think it's time for a change at the next general election.

The prize is there for Sir Keir to take.